Definition of "war-bonnet" [war-bonnet]

• A head-dress which consists of a skin bonnet set with feathers of the golden eagle and often provided with a long trailer decorated with feathers, worn by the Indian warriors of North America. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "Why, the last time I'd seen him he'd been in breech-clout and war-bonnet, all smeared with buffalo blood ... now he was rumbling on in Sioux, and I was struggling to identify those sonorous vowels, dredging words from the back of my mind."
• "As he rode up to Anson Mills, I noticed young Standing Bear in war-bonnet and leggings, with lance and carbine, at the head of one of the lines; I beckoned him to the tailboard and asked him what was up."
• "He alone had no war-bonnet or feathers, or anything but a coloured shirt; he was young and wiry, lean-faced and lank-haired and without paint-but with those eyes he didn't need any."